Haryana men and women dominate boxing ring

Posted By: Pti

Published: Thursday, February 24, 2011, 19:00 [IST]

Jamshedpur, Feb 24 (PTI) Haryana men and women dominatedthe boxing ring today winning five gold medals while hostsJharkhand followed with four gold in different weightcategories in the 34th National games at JRD Tata Sportscomplex here today.

Haryana''s Pinky Jangra, who created a flutter bydefeating five-time world champion M C Mary Kom two years ago,caused another upset today in women''s fly weight (51 kg) classwhen she outclassed reigning Senior National champion andformer Asian championship medallist L Sarita Devi of Manipur5-0 in the final to clinch the gold.

The 21-year-old, who had earned lots of accolades aftertrouncing Mary Kom in the quarter-final round of the seniorwomen''s national boxing championship in 2009 at the same venuehere, put up a stiff challenge against the 26-year-oldManipuri girl.

Both the boxers were locked scoreless till the thirdround before Jangra went all out to snatch five quick pointsin the last round to leave her opponent stunned.

Jangra exhibited a combination of footwork and powerfulpunches as Sarita, who is a medal prospect in the LondonOlympics, made abortive attempt to surpass. But the youngsterperfectly blocked her punches.

This is Jangra''s first gold in the National games.

Haryana, however, suffered a setback when its nationalchampionship bronze medalist Suman went down to Jharkhand''sSushma Kumari, a bronze medalist of the 11th senior nationalboxing championship at Thrissur, 8-1 in the Bantam weight (54kg) class in the women''s section.

Displaying her perfect footwork, Sushma went all outright from the first round and kept on grabbing points in eachrounds. After accumulating one point each in first two sets,Sushma opened up and started delivering perfect punches toclinch the gold.